


Lonely and ramshackle head

by Lleu



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Bad Decisions, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 09:40:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6149416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lleu/pseuds/Lleu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>     there’s only a shadow of me</i>
  <br/>
  <i>     in a manner of speaking I’m dead</i>
</p>
<p>Ryan spends a lot of time lying to himself. It doesn’t work as well as lying to other people, somehow. He spends a lot of time trying to think about other things. That works a little better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lonely and ramshackle head

**Author's Note:**

> Title and epigraph from Sufjan Stevens's song "John My Beloved".

Ryan wonders sometimes what it would be like not to hate himself.

He thinks there was a time when he didn’t. Things seemed pretty good when he was ten or so, but something went wrong in middle school and he’s not really sure what.

That’s a lie. Ryan spends a lot of time lying to himself. It doesn’t work as well as lying to other people, somehow. He spends a lot of time trying to think about other things. That works a little better.

He hadn’t planned on the whole _Kelly_ thing. He finds it a little difficult to concentrate when Jim is talking, sometimes. Something about it is distracting. But then he hears Jim’s question and he thinks, _This is what I need. Obviously. This will—_

He cuts that train of thought short. He’s good at that. “Yeah, totally. Did she say something?”

Later, when the camera team asks him about it, he adds, “She’s really cute, right?”

Then he second-guesses himself. “Right?”

Then things start to go downhill pretty quickly. “Hanging out” turns into “Kelly deciding they’re dating and telling everyone as much”. At first he tries to tell himself this is good. This will be good for him.

Some lies are beyond even Ryan’s ability to make convincing.

Taking this job was a mistake. He’s sure of that much. Every day the walls he’s building around himself get higher. He feels trapped. But it’s too late to dig himself out now.

He wonders idly if there’s anything left of ten-year-old Ryan, somewhere in this empty shell he’s turning into. Get up; go to work; do meaningless, mindless tasks for Michael; talk to Jim in the break room; listen to Kelly go on about what celebrities are dating this week; leave work; make dinner; have a beer; sleep. On weekends Kelly sometimes drags him out to do things. Sometimes he comes up with an excuse that sounds convincing enough that she doesn’t. Instead he sits on the couch, staring at the TV and wondering what went wrong.

They have sex sometimes. It’s not the _worst_ thing in the world.

Some days he wants to scream.

And once or twice a month when he’s alone in his room on a Saturday night, his thoughts betray him and the mouth he’s imagining on his dick is, well, a _guy_ ’s.

It’s a mess.

None of that is enough to explain why, when he runs into Andy Bernard at a bar in North Scranton the night after Andy punched a hole in the wall, he doesn’t just turn around and leave.

Or when he realizes how drunk Andy is.

Or when Andy, still drunk, has an arm wrapped around Ryan’s shoulder.

Or why, when Andy gets kicked out of the bar for yelling at…well, everyone and everything except Ryan, basically, Ryan, who _isn’t_ drunk, volunteers to drive him home.

But he does, and when they get to Andy’s house and Andy stumbles getting out of the car, Ryan picks him up and helps him get inside. One more in a long line of mistakes.

As soon as the door closes behind them (after Andy digs in his pocket for his keys for what feels like five solid minutes), Ryan knows it’s a mistake, that he shouldn’t be there, but then Andy’s kissing him and fumbling with his belt, and Ryan can’t quite make himself pull away.

And the next day Andy Bernard leaves for ten weeks of anger management training, which ultimately turns out, to Ryan’s dismay, to be only _five_ weeks of anger management training.

They never talk about it, at least. That’s a relief. Or not quite a relief, since maybe talking about it could have resolved something.

But he’s starting to get used to this emptiness.


End file.
